Resident Evil has been a joke among gamers for a long time. Capcom is known for derivative sequels, but the basic RE formula has been getting especially long in the tooth, after about a half-dozen iterations of essentially the same gameplay. Apparently Shinji Mikami and his team has been listening, because after a number of unreleased tries (some of which would go on to become Devil May Cry and P.N. 03), they've created a game that perfectly captures the suspense that the older Resident Evil games so clumsily grabbed at.

The first big change, and ultimately the least important, is the fact that the zombies and Raccoon City are gone. Resident Evil 4 follows Leon, now a Secret Service special agent, as he pursues the President's kidnapped daughter. His first lead is in an isolated Spanish village, but before you know it, everyone in town is trying to kill him. They aren't zombies, as the zombies never planned their attacks, snuck around buildings to try to surround him, or otherwise took advantage of the environment, but what they are is the least of the mysteries Leon is going to face.

The first little clutch of houses and barns is the best example of how RE4 has left the previous games in the series far behind. The entire village has turned on Leon, trying to stab or chop or strangle him. It's possible to run around the little town square, trying to hold all of the murderous villagers off, or try and hide in a house to keep from being surrounded. Even a house is only temporary shelter, though; the villagers will use ladders to climb into second-story windows, clamber over the roof to find a new entrance, or even tear through the closed front door with a chainsaw. (Of course, Leon can always block the doors, kick down ladders, or jump through windows, as there are all sorts of clever contextual actions mapped to the A button.) The villagers are capable, numerous, and tough, offering a sort of tension and challenge the Resident Evil series has long been missing.

Gone with the ponderous, unthreatening zombies are the fixed camera views. The camera is locked into position just over Leon's shoulder. It's isn't loose or overly broad; it's almost like the chase camera from a racing game. It places you right there with Leon; you're not in his head, first-person-shooter-style, but right there with him. The view is broad enough to keep you from feeling constricted, but just narrow enough to foster that crawling dread that there's something just out of sight. Shinji Mikami and the rest of his team took advantage of this just-broad-enough view both to build suspense, and just narrow enough to occasionally take advantage with jump-out-and-attack shocks. It's hard to imagine, but transparently effective when you actually play.

Just enough to make you feel overwhelmed is the word of the day in Resident Evil 4. Leon is built up as a heavily-armed, highly-skilled agent, faced with fearless, tough, numerous enemies. The weapons feel powerful, as even the handgun sends enemies reeling back, but even the weakest enemies can take three shots to the face and bounce back. It sounds ridiculous on paper, but there's the genuine feeling that no matter how tough you are or strong your weapons are, they're going to keep coming. When the developers have got you shooting downed enemies a couple extra times, just to be sure, it's clear how effectively they've balanced things.

Who would have expected a Resident Evil game to borrow from Shenmue, of all games? While there aren't any little pocket-sized toys to collect or sailors to find, Mikami has shamelessly stolen the Active Time Events from Shenmue for RE4. At first, it's just used for running away from a boulder, but as the game goes on, cut-scenes and rooms will throw quick challenges at you, like a falling axe or a sudden monster attack, forcing you to keep on your toes even in what seems like an empty room or a non-interactive cut-scenes. There's even a very memorable boss fight, delivered entirely as cut-scenes and button cues. It's a small thing, as such things go, but the thread of a quick DODGE cue helps keep you on your toes, even in the otherwise non-interactive cut-scenes.

Oh yeah. It's also the best-looking GameCube game ever. Leon's face isn't just a fantastic technical achievement; it's expressive without being plasticky, in a way only Half-Life 2 can match. The villagers and other enemies move, lurching or stumbling or running or climbing in a way that makes them feel real, like you could reach out and touch them (if they weren't trying to kill you.) The environments set the tone, from dusty paths through winter-dead forests, to the brooding, ill-kempt homes of the villagers. While nearly every single one of the bosses is a heart-stopping shock when it bursts onto the screen, one of the later bosses deserves special mention: when it bursts out of its outer skin, its new membrane glistens, covered in mucous and blood. Not in a "Wow, look at this new graphical reflection trick!" way, but in an "Oh, geez, how disgusting!" kind of way. Resident Evil 4 isn't just a technical tour de force; some of the slickest technical know-how is put to good use to actually put you there, immerse you in what's happening on-screen.

All sorts of things that you wouldn't normally question have been smoothed or removed entirely, just to keep you wrapped up in Leon's efforts. Load time has been cut down to nearly nothing. Backtracking and arbitrary puzzles that involve carrying a widget from here to the widget-shaped hole allllll the way over there have been excised. Continue points are liberally distributed, making deaths only a minor setback. All of the graphic adventure DNA has been bred out; if it didn't make the game scarier or more immersive, it was tossed.

All of this effort to immerse you into the game would be fruitless if the same old Resident Evil inventory management nonsense reared its ugly head once again. Luckily, it doesn't; key items have been spun off into a separate screen with unlimited space, inventory space is much more plentiful, and the ridiculous crates and ink ribbons of previous Resident Evil titles have been left behind. Switching weapons is a bit easier, as well, as the knife is available with the touch of a button, without recourse to the inventory screen. It might have been nice, though, if Capcom could have included some way to switch weapons on the fly, though.

Resident Evil 4 deserves special credit for getting one of the bugbears of the gaming industry right, for once: the escort mission. The majority of the game will be spent escorting Ashley around, and she's completely helpless in combat. Somehow, though, she's never intrusive. Ashley is smart enough to duck out of the way of your aim immediately, so she's never an obstacle in combat, and, rather than enemies just beating her to death, they pick her up and carry her to a door, giving you time to kneecap the would-be kidnapper. For those challenges where having Ashley along would make things nearly impossible, there's almost always an out-of-the-way area or convenient hiding place for Ashley to stay put while you deal with the oncoming horde. Normally, having to escort a noncombatant for half the game wouldn't be much fun, but Capcom got this one right.

With all Capcom got right, it's a shame that Resident Evil 4 lags occasionally. The story, meaning the bits of spoken dialogue that intersperse the heart-pounding sequences, isn't that great. While there's one charismatic villain that hams it up to liven up the second act, watching people talk just isn't terribly entertaining, mostly due to somewhat iffy scriptwriting and occasionally-weak voice acting. Shinji Mikami should just leave Codec talking-head sequences to Hideo Kojima and his team at Konami Japan; his talents clearly lie elsewhere.

But you won't remember the somewhat soft dialogue. You'll remember the nod to Texas Chainsaw Massacre that made it clear that these aren't zombies that you're facing, or frantically racking the slide on your rifle to take another shot at the cultist carrying Ashley to her doom, when you realized that, oh hell, that boss isn't dead yet. Resident Evil 4 is heartstopping moment after heartstopping moment, paced nearly perfectly and executed flawlessly. 2005 has its game of the year, and that game is Resident Evil 4.

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